A serious type of turbulence has been encountered during commercial airline flights has been in the news lately. “Pancake turbulence”.  Hard to detect in advance. Most recently, an Air Europa flight from Madrid to Uruguay was hit by “strong turbulence” and had to make an emergency landing in Brazil, In another recent event. a flight bound from London to Singapore with 211 passengers and 18 crew members encountered turbulence that resulted in the death of a passenger, and the hospitalization and critical care of about 20 more with spinal injuries. What's this type of turbulence all about? How concerned should we be about flying? Dr. Thomas Gwynn, head of the Department of Applied Aviation Sciences at the distinguished Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,  explains about this type of turbulence and how turbulence may be increasing with global warming.

 

 Key Takeaways:

• Turbulence result from eddies in the atmosphere and can be light, moderate, severe, and extreme.

• Chop turbulence is usually more moderate and rhythmic, similar to driving a car over a rumble strip. It can be annoying but isn’t usually dangerous. 

•  While onboard radar can help determine storms enabling pilots to avoid them, pancake turbulence, such as what affected these recent flights, cannot be detected by instruments.  Pilots can only learn of these from other pilots.

• Some studies seem to suggest that turbulence could be increasing with climate change. 

• No form of travel is without some level of risk, but flying is still, statistically, the safest mode of travel. 

 

"The smaller the aircraft, the more vulnerable it's going to be to turbulence. For commercial airliners, generally, they have roughly the same vulnerability. So what really determines the vulnerability is something called the wing loading. The least vulnerable aircraft is going to be heavy aircraft with smaller wing sizes like your large jets. The greater weight makes it harder for the airflow to disrupt or move the aircraft." —  Dr. Thomas Guinn

 

Connect with Dr. Thomas Guinn:

Professional Bio: https://faculty.erau.edu/Thomas.Guinn 

Email: [email protected] 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-guinn-37686439 

 

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: [email protected]

 

 

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